Everyone had welcomed Harlow into our little family in a way they never had before, and even after three weeks, there were still times I would catch Harlow staring at one of them with a wide-eyed look—like she didn’t know how to handle them being so nice to her.
Graham and Deacon were now normal around her, if you didn’t count how often they were shoving food in front of her. Grey and Harlow had quickly become close, and while it felt like she was trying to take Harlow from me, I hadn’t mentioned anything, just enjoyed watching Harlow slowly piece bits of herself back together.
Harlow’s smile had slowly become a normal sight, and watching it go from polite and reserved, to genuine and free had been a beautiful thing. Her blue eyes were something in itself to look at. They were haunted, and it was hard to stare into them and wonder what she was thinking, seeing, or feeling at that moment. But at the same time, there was a piece of them that showed the bits of the Harlow I’d fallen in love with all those years ago. It was like both sides of her were fighting each other, and neither was winning yet.
The most noticeable change to everyone else was her weight—which Graham and Deacon were taking credit for. Her face had filled out enough that she almost looked healthy, and while she said she was still two sizes smaller than what she’d been before she’d married Collin, it was a huge difference. She looked more beautiful each day.
For me, it was everything else. It was the way she always found a reason to touch me, the way she no longer had to hold herself together—like she might shatter if she didn’t—and the way it was becoming less often that I had to beg her to come back to me after she woke up screaming in fear. More often than not over the last week, she reached out for me, and brought herself back.
I tilted her head back and passed a brief kiss across her lips as she grabbed a shirt out of one of my drawers to put on, then I walked into the bathroom to take a quick shower so she could have a few minutes to herself. I heard her come in at one point to brush her teeth, but she didn’t say anything, so I didn’t, either.
I knew whenever she got done seeing anyone now, whether it was her family or my friends, she needed time to just breathe and unwind since she was still getting used to people talking so freely about how Collin had been. But I’d also learned not to offer to give her the entire night to herself. She said she wanted me near her, and I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
My heart pounded faster when I walked out of the bathroom and saw her sitting on my bed. I didn’t know if I would ever get used to seeing her there, waiting for me, but I knew I didn’t want to. I wanted to always be overwhelmed by how beautiful she was, and always wonder how she could still want me after all the bullshit we’d endured.
Harlow’s head dropped, and she stared at where her hands were twisting together. “You don’t call me yours anymore.”
My lips twitched in amusement, since I’d just been thinking something close to that, but there was no humor in my voice when I declared, “You are mine.”
She lifted her head to look at me thoughtfully. “You said it a lot when I was married. It took me a while to realize it, but you haven’t said it since Collin died.”
“Because it’s not what you need.” I walked over to the bed and sat in front of her, and wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her body closer to mine. “Right now you’re still working through things, and you’re trying to do things your own way for the first time . . . and I need to let you. You don’t need me claiming that you’re mine every day while you’re doing that. And that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t given you my opinion on anything: because I want all these decisions to be only yours. I don’t want you to make them for me or because of me. I know I’ll be in your life, and I’ll fit into whatever you’ve decided to have for yourself, and it will be perfect for us. If I was selfless, I would give you time alone—without me in your life—”
“No!” she whispered, horrified.
“—but I can’t do that. Besides, I think we learned from the first time around that giving you that much space isn’t good for us.” I winked, and she rolled her eyes. “The space I’m giving you is as much as I’m willing to give up after having lost almost five years, but it is only because I think you need it.”
Harlow sighed in relief. After taking a second to gather her thoughts, she argued, “You had an opinion on the money.”
“That’s because you were trying to pay for things for Graham and me, and we didn’t need that. I only fought you when you tried to basically give it, or gift it, to us. And then I only questioned you when you wanted to give it to everyone else because I wanted to make sure you’d thought about it—that’s all.”